


Standard of Care

by trr_rr



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Brownham, Hypnotism, M/M, Medical, Needles, Psychotropic Drugs, Restraints, Will in hospital, Wounds, hair cutting, pretty much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-02 00:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4040206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trr_rr/pseuds/trr_rr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two giant baby dorks interact for a while</p>
            </blockquote>





	Standard of Care

“Tell me about your home, Mister Graham.” Matthew prompted gently. It was always awkwardly ironic, cleaning up wounds created by the restraints that were there to stop a patient from hurting themselves.

Will sighed. He knew he was being managed, knew that Matthew, that was his name, the nurse, was using little bedside tricks.

He was too tired to resist.

“It’s not that impressive.” He croaked, defeated before there had even been an argument about it.

“I bet it’s nice. I live in a one bed apartment in the city.”

Will noticed that he kept his voice low, not in volume but in pitch, he knew high tones could grate quickly. He was good at his job.

“I couldn’t live there.”

“Too many people in the city, Mister Graham?”

“No,” he smirked lazily, “not enough space for my dogs.”

“You have dogs?” Matthew smiled, carefully stroking an antiseptic wipe around one of the welts on Will’s left wrist. “I always wanted a pet.”

“I have more than one.” His heart warmed a little when he thought of his family; he saddened when he imagined them missing him, as he missed them.

Mathew noticed this curve in the conversation and redirected them with ease.

“So you live around a lot of open land?”

“Mmn.” The sedative clung to him, made it hard to give complex answers.

“You hike, Mister Graham?”

“No. Fish- Sssth...” The sore on the inside of his left wrist was a bitch.

“There.” Matthew laid the soiled wipe aside and picked up a fresh one, continuing his work. “I’ve never really fished before. I put down traps for the rats in the city. That’s about it.”

“There’s a river,” Will licked his dry lips and shut his eyes to see it with his mind’s eye. “It’s cool. And clean. There’s trees. Birds, sometimes. The breeze.”

“It sounds nice. I’d like to visit a place like that. I only get out of the city to come to work.” Matthew shrugged. He made sure Will’s wounds were securely wrapped before re-fastening the wrist restraints.

Will let out a breath as he was buckled back down to the bed, again. He didn’t resist.

“Thank you, Mister Graham. I don’t usually get such civilised conversation with the patients here.”

Will nodded but Mathew wasn’t sure he’d understood.

He seemed distant.

Maybe he was fishing.

\--

“Don’t fucking _touch me_!”

Two orderlies, as well as Doctor Chilton, stepped out from Will’s cell and Matthew could see the commotion from down the hall.

It wasn’t rare to hear screaming in Baltimore’s hospital for the criminally insane.

Matthew caught onto the conversation as he approached; Will’s shouts and wails an ever present ruckus under Chilton’s instructions.

“…and we can’t have Crawford see him like this, put him in mitts before he scratches his nose off.”

“What about his hair?” The larger, female orderly asked. “He’s still missing patches from before solitary.”

“We’ll have to cut it. It’s longer than any other patient’s in the building. _Brown_.”

Matthew, who had been trying to pass through the corridor without detection, looked up to answer.

“Yes, Doctor?”

“He’s not responding and I am hesitant to use force. Sedate him again.”

\---

"Mister Graham? Mister Graham, Ssshh, it's ok."

Will whined and ground his teeth, his eyes roved madly in fear and frustration. Whatever cocktail Chilton was using to get a straight story out of him, it wasn’t mixing well. He stilled as Matthew laid a hand on his shoulder with solid pressure.

"We're home, Mr Graham. We're home and you're lying in the grass out back. The dogs are here. Can you hear them? They're sniffing and running around.”

Will looked at Matthew with tear filled awe, like he had seen a glimpse of heaven between parted clouds. He was there, in the field with Matthew, trapped in Matthew's gaze.

“We're lying out in the field and the sun is here, beating down on us. I'm so happy to be here with you, Mr Graham. We just ate a big lunch in your kitchen and came out here to sleep in off in the sunshine."

Will’s breathing slowed and his shuddering limbs relaxed against the restraints.

"Let's go back to sleep, ok. It's too hot to be awake, what's the point in trying to fight it. We already went fishing, remember? And now we've eaten the catch and it’s time to rest. Let's rest, Mr Graham. Will you sleep here next to me? I'll keep an eye on the dogs if you doze off, don't worry."

Matthew stroked his thumb over the back of Will’s hand. Matthew checked his cannula had not been jarred from where it lay rooted in his forearm.

“That bee sting looks awful sore.”

Will nodded and tears filled his eyes as Matthew disinfected the skin around his wound. He watched from where he lay in the warm golden field as Matthew administered some kind of sedative into the needle he’d had put in back when he started refusing food and water.

“There. That’s much better.”

Will nodded despite the burning in his arm. He’d been stung before, he wasn’t scared.

“Will.” Matthew rubbed up and down Will’s arm, soothing the burning inside. “I’ll get you up in a little while and we’ll sit by the river side. Would you like that?”

Will found he couldn’t even nod his head. His eyelids drooped and then it seemed he was asleep.

\--

He was roused by the sound of scissors snipping past his ear. He flinched away and relaxed when he heard Matthew shush him.

“Come on. That’s enough.”

The nurse had pair of scissors and a comb. Will’s saw clumps of hair in his lap and all dotted around his bare feet. He was sat in a cheap looking plastic chair. He was restrained to the arms with thickly padded leather cuffs.

“You lied to me.” Will croaked. His stomach flipped with the after effects of whatever drug he’d been given. Nausea was usually the only side effect he suffered after he was put out.

“Nu uh.” Matthew answered back.

“You said we were going to the river.”

“Did I?”

Will frowned.

Matthew smiled and continued to comb through Will’s knotted curls. He tugged at a bunch that had become almost matted and Will grumbled groggily.

“Well, if I could have done this sooner it wouldn’t have gotten this bad but you had to fight everyone who tried to wash you.”

“I’m clean.”

“No, you’re not.” Matthew took up his spray bottle of water and soaked Will’s hair with a good dose of it. “You kind of stink.”

Will snorted at the sensation and then sighed heavily as he submitted to the treatment.

“I sweat when I sleep.”

“I know.”

He didn’t answer back, of course Matthew knew, he was the one that had to clean his sheets and wash his dirty hospital issue underpants.

Matthew gave up on untangling Will’s curls and snipped a fraying handful right off.

“You do this often? With the other inmates, I mean.”

“I do it when I have to. Not all our _patients_ are here for so long that they need this.”

“Mm.”

“I don’t have any qualifications from Beauty College if that’s what you’re asking.”

Will shrugged.

“It’s the scissors or it’s the clippers. You came here with curls so I figured you like your hair that way.”

“Don’t make me look like a dork.”

“You look like a man who needs a haircut, Mr Graham. I’m doing my best, I promise.” Matthew punctuated his words with another healthy spray from the bottle.

It was a quiet and almost calming period of time. Will let his focus fade and return in waves as Matthew worked above him. He was careful clipping close to his neck and came around front many times to check he’d cut it all even.

When the snipping stopped and the comb ran back and forth one too many times, Will started to fuss and shift in his seat.

“Alright. I get it.” Matthew put the comb down and ran his fingers through Will’s hair to let it settle. “All done.”

Will waited. But Matthew continued to stare at the job he’d done.

“So…do I get to see it or?”

“What? Oh. I’m sorry, we don’t allow mirrors in the patients wing, Mr Graham.”

“What?” Will pulled at his cuffs, his agitation ramping up by the second. “You won’t show me what you’ve done?”

“It looks nice. Really, you look so much better.”

“Let me see. Let me _see, Matthew_.”

“Alright, alright.” Matthew looked around for something shiny enough. He picked up a kidney dish and held it up. “Can you see?”

Will shifted his head, ducking and tilting until he got a good look at himself.

“Hm.” He turned his head from one side to the other, keeping his eye on the reflection. “At least you didn’t cut me.”

Matthew sighed and put the dish back on the trolley.

“You look fine.” He started to sweep the hair from Will’s lap and shoulders. “Maybe even better than when you arrived.”

“I have a curl in the middle of my forehead. You made me look _cute_.”

“What’s so bad about that?”

“Matthew.”

“Alright, Will, time to get you back into bed.”

Matthew sighed as he loaded the syringe and gently administered the drug into Will’s system again.

“You did a good job.” Will smiled despite the burn.

“I tried.”

“You’re a good nurse.”

“Thank you.”

“Will you take me back to the field? Before I have to deal with Chilton and his orderlies again. I don’t want to talk to Jack Crawford. I don’t want to be here.”

Mathew stroked the back of Will’s hand, lulling him gently into calmness before he started to speak.

“Will you tell me their names?”

“All of ‘em?”

“Who’s the newest?”

“Oh,” he smiled, “that’s Winston.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Rolling around.” His eyes began to hood and the warm sun gave everything a beautiful hazy glow. “Wriggling around on his back.”

“He does that a lot, doesn’t he.”

“Yeah. I love him so much. Miss him.”

“He’s right here, Will.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. All of them are here with us.”

Will smiled as he watched his pack circle and play before they came to rest right by his and Matthew’s side.

“I’ll be gone when you wake up.”

“You have to go home?”

“Yes.”

“You can stay the night…s’dark. Might be hard-” Will sighed heavily. “Hard to drive home. You can sleep in my bed.”

Will heard Matthew give a knowing chuckle.

“Mr Graham, that would be very inappropriate.”

“Mm, too soon? Sssorry.” He smirked. “L’like you a lot.”

“Thank you.”

“Even if you mess’d my hair.”

“Sssh. Go to sleep. I’ll come over again real soon.”

“Y’promise?”

“I promise.”

 

 


End file.
